The Sand Caves: rooms dug into a cliff near Kanab

Welcome to the Kanab Sand Caves, a set of rooms dug right into a sandstone cliff. It's a short, sandy walk, then a steep scramble up bare rock to the caves.

Two safety notes before we start. The slickrock is slippery with sand, and coming down is the trickiest part, so take it slow and keep little ones close, especially near the cave windows, which drop straight down. And this cliff faces west, so in the afternoon it gets hot. Bring water.

I'll tell you a story at each spot and stay quiet in between.

Look back toward the highway. That big sign at the turnoff belongs to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, up Angel Canyon.

It was founded in 1984 by a group of friends who believed that shelter animals shouldn't be put down just because nobody had adopted them yet. Back then that was a radical idea. Today Best Friends is the largest sanctuary of its kind in the country. Its land stretches across thousands of acres of canyon, and on any given day it cares for well over a thousand animals: dogs, cats, horses, pigs, birds and more. Many of them came from disasters or hard places, and many go on to new homes.

Now, follow the sandy path toward the cliffs.

The town you came from has a name with deep roots. Kanab comes from a Southern Paiute word meaning place of the willows, for the willows that grow along Kanab Creek.

Pioneers built a small fort there in the 1860s, abandoned it during the Black Hawk War, and came back for good in 1870. And Kanab has a surprising first. In 1911, the town elected a council made up entirely of women, often said to be the first all-woman town government in the country. Some say it started as a prank. But the women, led by Mary Chamberlain, took the job seriously and ran the town for two years.

The cliff you're walking toward is sandstone, mostly the Kayenta Formation, laid down by ancient rivers, with the great Navajo Sandstone above it, the remains of a giant desert of dunes. Notice the colors: red, yellow and brown, with darker wavy streaks of iron.

This rock is soft. Its sand grains are only loosely glued together, and that's why the caves exist. They aren't natural. Miners dug them to get sand, which was pure enough to make glass. Most guides say the mine was dug in the 1970s and didn't last long; some say it's older, from around the Second World War. Nobody has put a firm date on it, so it's a small mystery of its own.

Just up the road is a different cave altogether: Moqui Cave, a natural cave that has been a dance hall and is now a private museum of minerals and fossils.

Here's the climb to the caves. Before you start, let's make a plan.

The rock looks grippy, but loose sand makes it slippery. People say it's easier to go up on the left, then move right once it levels off. Grown-ups, stay below the little ones on the way up and in front of them on the way down. Going down is where most slips happen, so take it slow and face the rock where it's steep.

At the top, the rooms connect to each other, the sand floor is soft and it's cool inside. Some rooms have windows that open straight out over the cliff, so no running, and hold hands near the openings.

I'll be quiet now so you can explore. Thanks for visiting the Sand Caves with me.